Are the roses really red? - Kenya’s Virtual Water trade

Globally the trade in flowers is worth £10.6bn, it is this market that Kenya’s growing horticulture industry has been getting into over the past 30 years . Kenya is now the world’s 3^rd largest exporter of cut flowers. Here in the UK we are the second largest importer of Kenya’s cut flowers. Together with the Netherlands and Germany we account for 90% of Kenya’s flower exports (Mekonnen et al 2012). Kenya’s cut flower industry has been praised with success, providing a monumental US$141million/yr in foreign currency (Mekonnen & Hoekstra 2014). The industry is a source of employment, 25000 people are employed in the Lake Naivasha Basin, which accounts for 95% of cut flower exports from Kenya (Mekonnen et al 2012). Employers are considered generous compared to many agriculture industries in Kenya, providing above minimum wages, free housing, medical care and schooling for children of employees.

Cut flowers are produced in Lake Naivasha have a water footprint of 16 million m³/yr . Individually, each red rose exported takes between 7 – 13 litres of water to produce (Mekonnen et al 2012). This is the idea of virtual water: ‘the water that is used in the production of a commodity’ (Allan 2003). This means every year around 16million m³ of water are being removed from the country every year. This isn’t even the most water intensive form of agriculture;  Coffee removes 1662million m³/yr, tea removes 982million m³/yr and cotton removes 578million m³/yr (Mekonnen & Hoekstra 2014). Kenya, in total, uses 23% of fresh water appropriation in producing exported agriculture products (Mekonnen & Hoekstra 2014). This is a huge amount of water removal for a country considered water stressed (UNeP 2006). Furthermore land is being taken up for inedible exported flowers over food production to feed an ever growing population. Kenya’s fertile growing land is precious, 80% of Kenya is arid/semi-arid offering poor conditions to grow food. Currently 1.3 million people are struggling with a ‘crisis’ level food insecurity (IPC level 3). With a growing population, at a rate of 2.3%, and climate change, making longer droughts more frequent, water and food insecurities are surely going to worsen.

The idea of virtual water however has been used as a remedy to local water scarcity (Hoekstra & Hung 2004). If we imagine one ton of wheat is imported from the UK to Kenya during a time of water shortage, then Kenya can escape the economic and political stress of mobilising the 1000 tons of water that would be required to produce this quantity of wheat. It is in this way a powerful tool that can be used with great flexibility, argued by Allan (2003) to outmatch any engineered water security measure, e.g. a dam. In Kenya overall the export is equivalent to 4.1 km³/yr of water, but this is nearly completely balanced by the 4.0 km³/yr imported. Economically it makes sense, despite the slight imbalance, as Kenya makes US$0.25/m³  on water exported and pays only US$0.10/m³ on imported water.

Economy isn’t all that we care about when we discuss virtual water trade, we also need to consider the environmental impacts. The flower industry at Lake Naivasha basin has a 5.28million m³/yr grey water footprint (Mekonnen et al 2012). The grey water footprint is the “the amount of fresh water required to assimilate pollutants to meet specific water quality standards.” The pollutants are mainly coming from fertilizers which for roses are used at a rate of  325kg/ha of Nitrogen, 145kg/ha of Phosphate and 303kg/ha of potassium Oxide  per year (Mekonnen et al 2012). Runoff of these pollutants has been causing Eutrophication of Lake Naivasha. Simultaneously, water is being extracted directly from the lake, or from the rivers and groundwater system that feed the lake, at a rate of 7.2 million m³/year (Mekonnen et al 2012). This has resulted in a lake level drop of 3m, putting a massive strain on all local biotica (Becht and Harper 2002). Expansion of the flower market for economic benefit, as has been happening, will only heighten the pressures on the local ecosystems.

Most recently the covid pandemic has had a dramatic impact on the export of virtual water. The cut flower market was hit hard. With restriction on international flights impeding exportation and the worldwide reduction in weddings and funerals the flower industry was ruined. Equator Flowers farm in Kenya, which produces 100,000 rose stems a day, lost 80% of its orders in the first 3 months of the pandemic equating to a loss of $300 000 in revenue. Across Kenya  by the 3^rd week of March 2020 more than 30 000 temporary workers in the horticultural industry had lost their jobs, whilst a further 40 000 permanent  workers had been sent home on compulsory annual leave (Hivos 2020). The balance of virtual water trade has been changed, this is a major risk of the international virtual water trade.

The future for Kenya’s virtual water trade is uncertain. The trade-off between growing for exportation and growing for domestic consumption is facing pressure from a growing population, climate changes and changing consumer patterns, as demand for more water intensive animal water products increases. Policy makers are required to take action: improving water efficiency, charging prices based on full marginal costs of water and protecting the natural ecosystems, are just a few of the areas that require attention to make virtual water trade more sustainable.